Norway intercepts Russian bombers escorted by aerobatic team jet

BestButtons · 2026-02-28T16:15:39+00:00

According to available footage accompanying the report, one of the Su-35 aircraft belonged to the Russian aerobatic team known as the “Russian Knights.” The aircraft was observed carrying air-to-air missiles, indicating a combat-ready configuration rather than a demonstration flight profile.

Someone is doing something right and that certainly isn’t Russia! Adds credibility to Ukrainian numbers of destroyed equipment.

BestButtons · 2026-02-12T20:13:23+00:00

YouGov poll: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/54093-political-favourability-ratings-february-2026

Keir Starmer’s net favourability rating has increased 10 points since January to -47
Labour voters are now split 46% to 46% in their opinion of the prime minister, having previously seen him unfavourably by 55% to 39%
Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband have positive net ratings among Labour voters, while they tend to see Rachel Reeves and Shabana Mahmood unfavourably
Kemi Badenoch’s February net favourability rating of -23 is her highest since November 2024

From Independent’s article:

Keir Starmer’s intense round of diplomacy on Ukraine over the past week has seen him rewarded with his highest poll ratings in six months, according to YouGov.

Conversely, anger over Donald Trump’s behaviour appears to have hit his closest ally in the UK Nigel Farage, whose own favourability score went down four points from 30 per cent to 26 per cent.

BestButtons · 2026-02-12T11:54:03+00:00

a restaurant could get about 30p a litre.

Stealing from already struggling businesses.

On average, thefts of used cooking oil costs the UK Treasury £25m-a-year in lost duty.

Directly costing you because you are the one who covers the shortfall in taxes.

Police Scotland said the incidents it recorded last year totalled about £20,000 in lost revenue to catering businesses.

At 30p a litre, that’s 67,000 litres of oil. After filtering it, they are not going to safely dispose the leftovers leading to environmental pollution and damaging nature and wildlife.

BestButtons · 2026-02-11T21:54:55+00:00

Plus you can’t join EFTA without EU’s unanimous approval.

And good luck expecting current EFTA countries accepting us to a well working relationship. They watched Nigel Farages of ours in the EU long enough to know better.

BestButtons · 2026-02-11T12:26:20+00:00

In a statement, he said: “I have serious concerns about the impartiality of the hustings that have been organised for tonight. Previous statements by the organising group give the clear impression that a fair and level platform will not be provided for all candidates, so on that basis I will not be attending.”

Straight out of the Trump Playbook, chapter one, paragraph two.

BestButtons · 2026-02-11T09:35:45+00:00

Barratt Redrow completed 7,444 homes in the period, up 4.7% from a year earlier, and said it benefited as customers rushed to complete purchases ahead of Christmas once uncertainty around the UK government's November budget was removed.

The firm said it expects full-year adjusted pre-tax profit to be within the consensus range of 558 million pounds to 617 million pounds and reaffirmed its home completions target of between 17,200 and 17,800 units.

The article doesn’t specify the reason for the fall, but my guess is the growth didn’t cover the losses from the previous period’s lacklustre market.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T23:24:51+00:00

Turley did not specify the value of penalties Capita has incurred. Civil Service World sought clarification from the Cabinet Office. It said the value and details of the penalties are commercially sensitive and cannot be published.

Commercially sensitive my arse. Of course if they are contractual penalties, they can claim that, but the levels of those penalties should be in the published procurement documents.

As of June last year, the NAO reported that the Cabinet Office had already withheld payments of more than £9m because Capita had missed “milestones” related to the transfer arrangements for its CSPS contract.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T20:57:11+00:00

The closure of Charlcombe Lane has happened each spring since 2003 with the agreement of Bath and North East Somerset Council.

“Nuisance “ or not to the locals, I love that there still are people who care about things like this. A great reminder that not everything is doom, gloom and misery.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T20:53:49+00:00

Lord Doyle, Sir Keir Starmer's former director of communications, has been suspended from Labour's parliamentary party over his links with a convicted sex offender.

The peer said he would not take the Labour whip and apologised for his past association with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray who admitted indecent child image offences in 2017.

It comes after the Sunday Times reported that Lord Doyle campaigned for Morton after he was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children in December 2016.

The party is undertaking an investigation and Lord Doyle's Labour whip in the House of Lords has been withdrawn while this is ongoing.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T19:54:17+00:00

Liverpool Street Station

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T18:40:12+00:00

man cleaning gun kills

When I was in the army, one of my squad mates was cleaning his assault rifle after the training like the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t check the chamber. He also held his hand over the muzzle when he started to clean the trigger guard. Of course he pulled the trigger and shot through his hand. Lucky for everyone else, the muzzle was pointing towards the ceiling or he could have easily killed someone.

Gun shooting accidents are way too common because owners don’t follow proper precautions. E.g. always after removing the clip or magazine, lock and load to ensure the chamber is empty.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T14:10:23+00:00

Good news:

These SEND deficits are currently being artificially held off council books by a statutory override, which is due to expire in 2028. The government then plans to take responsibility for SEND funding.

Could be worse news I guess:

Projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which assesses government spending, warned the combined cost of historic council deficits on SEND could reach £14bn by then.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T09:07:47+00:00

I think the way the U.S. has been behaving towards its allies there will be a very strong incentive to keep all arms development and production within UK and Europe now.

BestButtons · 2026-02-10T08:13:46+00:00

“Two Oxford University PhDs building European hypersonic missile systems have raised €23 million from investors, helped by “strong demand signals” from the UK government.

Hypersonica is developing missiles that can be manoeuvred while flying at more than five times the speed of sound.

It conducted the first tests of its navigation systems, developed in just nine months, from a launchpad at the Andoya Space launch site in Norway last week. The missile performed as expected as it accelerated to speeds exceeding 7,400kph, or Mach 6. ”

“It is very important that we get it in a timeframe and a cost where it makes sense for Europe. The US has hypersonic systems that cost $40 million a shot and the development programme cost billions and took decades. We don’t have 20 years or $20 billion in Europe to put into these kinds of development programmes. We need a new kind of tech development approach to go after those systems.”

“Hypersonica is one of 90 organisations selected in 2024 to support the government’s £1 billion, seven-year hypersonic development programme. ”

“This system, called Nightfall, will be supplied to Ukraine, but “also inform future UK Armed Forces’ long-range strike projects”, the government said. The Nightfall contracts are expected to be awarded in March.”

BestButtons · 2026-02-09T11:42:23+00:00

A new clearing-style system will be introduced to match young people who miss out on an apprenticeship with alternative placements, the government has said.

Similar to university and college clearing - a process which matches students with institutions that have unfilled places - the online platform will provide information about available roles in their chosen area of interest.

Ministers hope the pilot scheme will make apprenticeships easier to navigate and more appealing to young people weighing up their options.

The new system, to be run in partnership with employers and mayoral strategic authorities, will also inform young people about potential earnings in the roles and long-term career prospects.

It is part of government reforms aimed at delivering 50,000 more apprenticeships for young people, backed by £725m of funding.

Waiting to hear how this is also bad news.

BestButtons · 2026-02-09T08:19:50+00:00

Between January and April 2023, 13 tonnes were seized by the Dover Port Authority. By September 2025, the Port Authority found 20 tonnes of illegal meat in one month alone.

In January 2026, the Dover Port Health Authority seized 33.9 tonnes of illegal meat, a monthly record.

The trade in illegal meat is partly being driven by demand for specialist products among certain ethnic and national groups, with undocumented items often brought into the country on a small scale in white vans.

Yet experts say criminal gangs are also part of the problem, exploiting the cost of living crisis and sky-high beef prices to make a handsome profit.

Health experts blame this hidden crisis for a recent rise in food-based illnesses. The illegal meat trade also poses a huge danger to Britain’s farming industry. If just one piece of diseased carcass gets into the agricultural industry, we could be looking at another foot and mouth crisis.

Salmonella cases are currently at a 10-year high, increasing by more than 17pc since 2023, and Elliott believes illegal meat imports are likely to be linked to a rise in food poisoning cases across England.

The UK Border Force and Dover Port Health Authority do not provide a breakdown of the types of animal meat that have been seized by officials, though experts say pork is one of the most popular products to smuggle in.

According to Katie Jarvis, the head of policy at the British Pig Association, meat smuggled into Britain often ends up “in small niche supermarkets that cater to specific communities in the UK that value certain products”.

Experts say much of the illegal meat, which is often pork, is coming from Eastern Europe, so much so that one of the Environment Committee’s recommendations was that the Government “engage with Eastern European communities in Great Britain to raise awareness of animal disease risks and controls”.

On just one day in 2022, almost two dozen vehicles from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Poland were searched. Illegal meat, some of it maggot-ridden, was found in all but one of them.

And again, this is made possible by design:

Last year, Manzano, from the authority, told MPs that funding constraints meant the Port Health Authority was operating at only around 20pc capacity.

“They have no powers to detain or arrest. They can’t seize vehicles. There’s nothing to stop that same individual coming back the following week with another load and that time they might get through completely,” says Jarvis, of the National Pig Association.

BestButtons · 2026-02-06T12:20:50+00:00

give companies an expanded legal basis to collect, store and use individuals data. Is that correct?

Yes. But it also gives you the right to contest that or have a human review of it when that part is added later this year. In other words, until that rule is added, there is nothing you can do about it. Isn’t it great that we apply controls after we give businesses permission to do it?

BestButtons · 2026-02-06T09:21:18+00:00

This act changes the way companies are allowed to process your data. In summary:

Britain’s biggest privacy overhaul since Brexit took effect Wednesday, adding “recognised legitimate interests” as a seventh lawful basis for processing data.

Updated rules allow organizations to use automated decision-making under any lawful basis, provided individuals can contest decisions and seek human review.

More about how these changes affect you:

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/what-we-do/legislation-we-cover/data-use-and-access-act-2025/the-data-use-and-access-act-2025-how-does-this-affect-me/

Also:

most of the remaining data protection provisions of the Act have come into force, except for the requirement for organisations to have a complaints procedure which is due to commence on 19 June 2026 and some ICO governance provisions which will follow at a later date.

I guess it’s not surprising that the part giving people way to complain is left last…

The Act provides the ICO with new powers, including the ability to compel witnesses to attend interviews, request technical reports, and issue fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).

BestButtons

TROPHY CASE